Looking through my reading stack, I’ve noticed a number of second installments of titles I’ve already reviewed. So, over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be revisiting some of them to see how they’ve held up.

First up is Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist (Viz), which I reviewed in an installment of Flipped over at Comic World News. The first volume offered evidence that a comic could be very, very popular and very, very good at the same time. I’m happy to note that the second volume reinforces that theory.

(The following remarks contain SPOILERS for Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 2.)

Arakawa builds on the strengths of the first installment, further fleshing out the world inhabited by gifted alchemist Edward Elric and his brother, Alphonse. In the culture of FMA, there’s a lot of ambivalence towards the use of alchemy. To some, it’s a godsend. To others, it’s an abomination. There are plenty of shadings between those two extremes, which makes for a surprisingly rich fictional world.

This time out, Edward and Alphonse have a disastrous run-in with someone from the abomination side of the fence, a deadly fanatic by the name of Scar. Scar is using the powers he abhors to eliminate high-profile alchemists like Edward, and Arakawa is canny enough to let readers wonder if he doesn’t have a point. Scar’s throw-down with the Elrics follows their encounter with a state alchemist who’s gone to horrifying extremes to hold onto his funding and status. (The sequence may not have intentionally gone for a “publish or perish” joke, but I’ll choose to read one into it anyways.)

After a narrow escape, the brothers begin a journey home to repair the damage Scar was able to inflict. The journey has its own perils and is closely monitored by a powerful group with a mysterious agenda. It’s a nice mix of emotionally complex A-stories, exciting set pieces, and slowly developing subplots.

There’s strong character work on display, too. Arakawa deepens the dynamic between Edward and Alphonse, playing up their guilt and determination amid the brotherly bickering. There’s a nice sprinkling of comedy, too, mostly in the form of military man Alex Louis Armstrong, who volunteers to accompany the Elrics on their trip. Physically imposing, Armstrong isn’t exactly a deep thinker, but he’s endearingly sentimental and an awful lot of fun.

Arakawa’s art is crisp and accomplished, and her character designs are particularly nice. Her storytelling is assured, and she juggles a number of different narrative elements with ease. FMA continues to please.

***

It’s Monday, and another edition of Flipped awaits. This one takes a look at the actual Shoujo Manga Issue, not some warped alternate-universe version I invented.

Birds of Prey 84 (DC): While I don’t miss certain things about Ed Benes’s pencils on this title (his fondness for cheesecake, primarily), I do agree with writer Gail Simone’s assertion that Benes has a real facility for portraying emotional states through facial expressions. Joe Bennett does very competent work and he’s less likely to point a camera thongward, but his faces don’t have the nuance that Benes might have given them. Given the emotionally charged exchanges that drive this issue, that shortcoming hampers its potential impact.

Defenders 1 (Marvel): Fond as I am of this creative team’s work on Formerly Known as the Justice League and the recent JLA: Classified arc, it’s nice to see them apply their comedy style to a straight super-hero story. It’s fun to watch Booster Gold do something stupid and the subsequent wackiness, but it’s just as pleasurable to see Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis inject humor into a legitimately threatening scenario. Looking at the bones, this is an absolutely standard Defenders story: Dr. Strange learns of a plot by scheming (and squabbling) siblings Dormammu and Umar and assembles his longtime allies to deal with the threat. I don’t think anyone has ever articulated the dysfunction of this group quite as well, driving it with character and taking it to comic extremes. The creative team doesn’t have to resort to artificially ridiculous scenarios to generate laughs when the cast’s prickly dynamics provide plenty of fodder. Kevin Maguire’s visuals are essential to this, and his rich repertoire of sneers, smirks, grimaces, and eye-rolls gets a wonderful workout. (My favorite has to be the blissfully vacant, doe-eyed expression on the Silver Surfer.)

Ex Machina 13 (Wildstorm): This week on Murder, She Wrote… Okay, it’s not quite that bad, but writer Brian K. Vaughan’s efforts to get Mayor Hundred into a particular jury deliberation room seem strenuous, to say the least. The subplots tick along, and new aspects of members of the cast emerge, but the strained mechanics of the A story overwhelm everything else. (Yes, I’m perfectly aware that I’m nitpicking plausibility in a comic about a super-hero mayor.)

GLA 4 (Marvel): I’m still not sure how well the tone of this mini-series holds together. As a parody of grim-and-gritty spandex stories, it’s seemed just as prone to indulge in certain dismal excesses as the stories it parodies. In this installment, writer Dan Slott is a bit more successful in giving the malaise the level of absurdity I think it needs. The cumulative effect still probably ends up in bummer comics territory. On the bright side, Paul Pelletier does pull off some of the best sight gags in comics.

Manhunter 12 (DC): As much as I enjoy this series, this issue is a serious stumble. There’s entirely too much going on, and none of it gets sufficient attention or clarity. While the “Manhunted” arc could be interesting, none of the other Manhunters have gotten an adequate introduction to give their fates any weight. While I’m delighted to see DEO Agent Cameron Chase appear and think she could provide an interesting perspective on the book’s various themes, her function in the story is poorly defined. She doesn’t bring anything distinct to the proceedings, even for someone who enjoyed her solo series. Throw in subplots on Kate’s menacing father and a potential threat to techie Dylan, and you’ve got a comic that’s all over the map. Momentum and coherence take the biggest hits. (You’re welcome, Brian.)

Comics described as “two-fisted” don’t usually pique my interest. I associate the descriptor with crooked cops, reluctantly heroic lowlifes, and dead hookers. Over time, “two-fisted” has acquired a kind of musky hyper-masculinity that sends me scurrying in the opposite direction.

I’ll happily excuse Oni Press’s use of the term to describe Scott Chantler’s Northwest Passage, because it gets a nostalgic, even old-fashioned application.

The book’s billing as a “two-fisted historical adventure” may sound ironic, but it isn’t. The comic is precisely that, though without either the soaking of testosterone or the museum-piece stuffiness the term might suggest.

Northwest Passage opens with the efforts of Eagle Eye, a Cree shaman, to reunite with his old friend and partner in exploration Charles Lord. Disturbing events and visions have led Eagle Eye to fear for Lord’s safety. As Eagle Eye encounters some deadly obstacles along his way, Lord is celebrating his retirement. He’s completing a stint as governor for a trading company outpost on the Hudson Bay in the heart of Rupert’s Land in 1750s Canada.

Lord’s efforts as an explorer have given him a legendary status in his native England, and his years as a bureaucrat haven’t quenched his thirst for adventure and discovery. In fact, he sees his retirement as an opportunity to resume his search for the Northwest Passage, an Atlantic-to-Pacific water route through the Arctic Circle. But before he can pursue that long-held dream, he must deal with the threat to the outpost that Eagle Eye has foretold.

The situation is complicated by the presence of Lord’s half-Cree son, Simon. There’s an unexplained emotional distance between the two, contrasted with the frank hero-worship of Lord’s nephew, Templeton Fletcher. An “Oxford dandy,” Fletcher is headed toward the outpost on the same ship as Lord’s replacement, Walter Hargrove. Fletcher is rebelling against the complacency of his businessman father in favor of an uncle he knows only by reputation.

All of this father-son, making-of-a-man stuff could get queasy, but Chantler resists the urge to overstate it. It’s an element of the larger adventure, not its heart. His restraint is best demonstrated in a terrific scene between Hargrove and Fletcher, where Hargrove takes a moment to shatter some of Fletcher’s more romantic illusions about outpost life and urge Fletcher to rein in some of his natural elitism. It reflects what I see as Chantler’s unwillingness to either romanticize or grub up the period he’s portraying.

And he really doesn’t need to do either. It’s a fascinating point in history where opportunity, adventure, and the unknown intersect. Embellishment isn’t really required when a creative assembly of mostly credible elements will do just fine. While that may lead to a story that isn’t uniquely imaginative, it’s still exciting and, for comics, unusual.

Chantler has done two other titles for Oni, Days Like This and Scandalous, working from scripts by J. Torres. He’s a marvelous illustrator with a fluid, friendly style. His work here picks up traits he’s demonstrated previously – a great sense of design, affecting facial expressions, strong layouts – and adds a real facility for action and suspense. Eagle Eye’s race to the outpost is imaginatively rendered, as is a grisly turn of events on Hargrove’s ship.

Northwest Passage is Chantler’s comics writing debut, and it’s nice to see that his strengths as a visual storyteller translate. He’s clever in establishing enough of the period and its circumstances without it ever seeming like a history lesson. The exposition is handled conversationally, and it almost never overwhelms the characters who deliver it. The cast is a consistently interesting group, each viewing the outpost experience through their own lens. And the plot has nice momentum and complexity.

I don’t know if I can say that Northwest Passage is a great comic. There isn’t that gasp of surprise that comes from something truly original. But I can say without hesitation that it’s a very, very good comic, carefully crafted and artistically accomplished. It’s a two-fisted historical adventure in ways that really, really work.

Somewhere in West Virginia, a nondescript 30-something walks towards his mailbox.

“Bill… credit card offer… bill… alumni mailing… mysterious, magazine-shaped envelope with no return address… Wait, could this be — (rip, tear, rustle)…”

“It’s… it’s the shôjo issue! But… it’s the Wizard shôjo issue.”

The cover: I certainly never needed to see Michael Turner’s rendering of Tohru from Fruits Basket. What the hell happened to her ribs? And her feet?

Page 13: “Grrrl Power!” A “roundtable” of “hot industry headliners” talks about “the shôjo phenom.” Oddly enough the roundtable consists of Brian Bendis, Mark Millar, Geoff Johns, and Frank Miller. It starts off well enough, with everyone using words and phrases like “exciting” and “new markets” and “crossover.” Eventually, though, references to “ungrateful little brats” pepper the discourse, as do calls for protectionist trade measures that would not be out of place in one of those “Buy American” commercials that featured Vicki Lawrence as “Mama.”

Page 28: “Women in Uniform!” In this pictorial, readers see a variety of shôjo school uniforms as re-imagined by Greg Horn. I almost lose consciousness, but before the blackout, I picture a resort developer in Las Vegas having a “Eureka!” moment as he finally pinpoints just the right look for the cocktail waitresses who work the casino floor.

Page 48: “Who’d Win? Special Magic Girl Edition!” Okay, Alice Seno doesn’t carry a wakizashi, Sailor Venus has never crumpled anyone’s windpipe with a bo, and Sakura does not, to my knowledge, fling Clow Cards like shuriken, rending the flesh of her enemies. And what does Wolverine have to do with any of this? Of course he’d be able to kill them.

Page 65: “Cartoonist Sympathizers.” This is an extraordinarily uncomfortable interview with some of the creators working on OEL manga. Even after repeated, almost pleading inquiries, it still seems clear that they “wouldn’t really rather be drawing X-Men.”

Page 79: “Domestic or Imported?” An interesting compare-and-contrast piece on the relative merits of up-skirt fanservice visuals and Spider-Woman’s persistent camel toe. A little something for the regular subscribers, I guess.

Before I could go any further, I woke to find one of my dogs swatting at me with alarm. I’d obviously been thrashing around and screaming in my sleep. It had all just been a horrible, haunting nightmare.

But… what had been in that empty, magazine-shaped envelope sitting on the kitchen counter?
(Edited to add a quick note for anyone finding this via The Comics Journal Message Board: I will be doing a review of the actual TCJ Shojo issue for my Comics World News column, Flipped. It should appear Monday, July 25. Short preview: TCJ 269 was just astonishing in its scope and depth.)

I’ve loved the Defenders at various points in their checkered, sporadic history, but I’ve never had much interest in their Big Four (Dr. Strange, the Hulk, Namor, and Silver Surfer) as a unit. It’s the same with the Avengers’ Big Three (Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor). They’re too iconic and static, and my attention always wanders to the B-list characters who fill in the gaps (Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and the Vision in Avengers; Hellcat, Nighthawk, and Valkyrie in Defenders).

I’m looking forward to this week’s Defenders 1 (Marvel), though, because the comic approach by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire fits best with my own perception of the characters. If there was ever a group of characters that needed some deflation, it’s this one. I’ve always thought their blustering, short-tempered seriousness was ridiculous, and I like the idea of a creative team playing it for intentional laughs. (There’s an interview with Giffen at Comic Book Resources and some preview pages at Mile High Comics.)

***

The week’s manga highlight will likely be the second volume of Yotsuba&! (AD Vision). It was nice to hear (from Comics Reporter) that this was one of the buzz-generating titles at Nerd Vegas. I liked the first volume a lot, and I’m eager to see what new mysteries are unraveled by this weird little green-haired girl.

***

Scott Chantler’s visuals were one of the highlights of Oni’s Scandalous, and I’ve been looking forward to his Northwest Passage from the same publisher. The phrase “two-fisted” isn’t one that usually fills me with enthusiasm, but the premise is really interesting to me. There are lots of attractive preview pages at Comic Book Resources.)

***

The sheer number of this week’s Marvel offerings with “House of M” in them is enough to boggle the mind. House of M 4, House of M Director’s Cut 1, House of M Peterson Variant Cover 4, Secrets of the House of M, Spider-Man House of M 2… it reads kind of like a parody of a solicitation list. (It’s also hilarious that an arc from a spin-off title of the last big event — The Pulse Vol 2 Secret War TPB – gets collected before the actual mini-series is finished and halfway through the same writer’s next big event.)

***

It’s a good week for DC, with what seems to be a Huntress-centric issue of Birds of Prey (84) and another issue of Manhunter (12). Why do I suspect that this horrible cover will spur more sales?

(I’m never quite certain what constitutes a spoiler. It’s one of those lines that moves back and forth from reader to reader. And I’ve noticed that some parts of the Harry Potter audience are understandably sensitive the anything that even resembles a spoiler. So, while I won’t be giving away any specific plot developments and my comments will be fairly generic, be warned that some of the following remarks might cross your Personal Spoiler Threshold.)

Like many, many other people, I spent much of the weekend locked in a room with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was probably the most predictable book in the series so far, but that didn’t keep it from being compulsively readable.

There were some interviews with younger readers on Morning Edition today, and they approached it the same way I did: sit down and don’t stop reading until the book is finished. One of the interviewees nicely summed up the what-happens-next urgency of J.K. Rowling’s prose, and I really agree with her. Even when I’m fairly certain I know what’s going to happen next, the urgency is still there.

Take the big death in the book. If anything, I’m impressed that Rowling has managed to hold it off as long as she has. The event’s inevitability doesn’t diminish its impact, though. As loyal as Rowling is to the formula she’s established over six novels (and the tropes she’s appropriated from other fantasy classics), she keeps giving that formula so much detail and punch. The craft alone is startling.

One thing I did notice this time around is that Rowling seems to have largely abandoned the idea that anyone reading Book 6 might not have read Books 1-5. That’s a sensible approach, and there was much less exposition this time around. (I actually found that I kind of missed it, to be honest. While Book 6 was more streamlined, I’ve never really objected to being reminded of previous events and adventures.)

I’m always suspect when people say they couldn’t put a book down, but that was pretty much the theme of my weekend.

***

The down side of all of this is that this week’s Flipped is kind of a mixed bag. I’m sure trusty editor Shawn Hoke managed to remove all of the inexplicable references to Luna Lovegood that were in my first draft, though.

“I like to eat! Naptime smiles on Go-Go chest!”

I can’t be expected to resist a comic that has dialogue like that, can I?

The line is from Banana Sunday 1 (Oni), by Root Nibot and Colleen Coover, an all-ages comedy that looks like it will be an awful lot of fun.

Kirby Steinberg has transferred for Forest Edge High School, and she hasn’t come alone. At the behest of her primate researcher father, she’s brought three talking primates along with her to help them learn more about human society. Whether human society is ready for them is another question.

Chuck is an immensely intelligent orangutan, and in the tradition of immensely intelligent comic characters, he’s condescending. Chimpanzee Knobby is a smooth-talking ladies man. Kirby claims he learned English from romance comics, but he seems more like a crooner from the 1940s to me. Then there’s Go-Go, the gorilla. Go-Go isn’t quite as advanced as his comrades. When he speaks, it’s generally in reference to bananas (and his ownership of same) or napping (which he does often and without warning). I’m a little in awe of Go-Go, to be honest.

With these three underfoot, Kirby’s first day at Forest Edge (heh) has its ups and downs. She makes a friend in Nickels, the star reporter for the school paper, and has an embarrassing encounter with Martin, a photographer for the paper who seems to think he’s charmingly obnoxious. (So far, he’s only half right, but it’s early yet.) Nickels thinks there’s more to the apes than Kirby is saying, and she’s determined to dig up the real story.

You learn a lot about the characters because they have a tendency to declare themselves. (“Yep, that’s me! Heroic and adorable!” “It’s who I am! I burn with curiosity!”) It could get grating, but Nibot gives these pronouncements energy and charm. It fits with the straightforward approach of the storytelling. If the script isn’t particularly sophisticated, it’s got sweetness and sincerity to spare.

The biggest attraction here is the cartooning of Colleen Coover. The apes are adorable, particularly beetle-browed Go-Go. Coover packs the pages with small, funny touches, like the sequence where Kirby and company get ready for school. She has a way with sight gags, too, making excellent use of all of the discarded banana peels. There’s a good use of screen effects and shading to give the visuals more depth. (I would love to see it in color.)

Banana Sunday has a lot going for it, particularly in Coover’s work. It’s got a cute premise and real visual flair. It’s a welcome addition to the growing roster of accomplished, engaging comics for kids.

I don’t think I’ve seen this mentioned yet, but the Hollywood Reporter announced Josh Olson has been signed to adapt Naoki Urasawa’s Monster for a film version by New Line Cinema. A translation of Monster is being published by Viz and is listed in this month’s Previews.

I read the piece quickly but not well, and I thought David Cronenberg was directing, which would have been delightful if it had been true. Also, I’m stupid. (Thanks for pointing out my error and tactfully neglecting to mention my stupidity, David.)

Not me, that’s for sure.

***

A few years ago, DC made a big deal about announcing new creative teams for all of its Superman books, talking about how distinct each title would be and claiming that each would focus on a different aspect of the Man of Steel’s life. Since I liked some of the creators involved, I gave a couple of the titles a try. Almost immediately, the books started indulging in crossovers among all four Superman books, and I decided that it just wasn’t worth the aggravation to cherry pick the issues that stood alone.

Three issues into Gail Simone and John Byrne’s promising run on Action Comics, I find myself reading the second part of a crossover with other Superman books (none of which I read or am inclined to read) that also ties into The Omac Project (which I’m not reading either). There’s no indication as to where the story (“Sacrifice”) started, which seems sloppy. And the comic itself is very much the second chapter of a story where you need to have read the first for it to make much sense. Irritation with this sort of thing prevents me from caring how it started or being curious about how it will end.

***

Hi, I’m Vicki Vale. You, lucky readers of All-Star Batman and Robin 1, get a peek-a-boo into the working life of the professional journalist, watching me wander around my glamorous apartment in my underwear and high heels as I dictate my next column. God, do I hope it’s just a draft, because I make Candace Bushnell sound like Pauline Kael. Those poor bastards who read it in the paper won’t even be able to see my ass.

But you can all see my ass, can’t you? And my tits? Oopsie, I got some booze on my finger. I’d better lick it off. Is that a quarter on the floor? I’d better bend over and check. Buzzers are loud! But sometimes they mean that there are men waiting for me. Cool.

She gets slapped around by cops later. Puke, puke, puke, puke, puke.

I know it doesn’t matter that I think this comic is awful, and it’s probably already made a ton of money by the time I write this. But I do think it’s awful. Jim Lee’s art and Frank Miller’s script go together about as well as cotton candy and motor oil, and it isn’t like either is that great to start. The disconnect between the visual and the verbal is about the only thing the book’s got going for it, because it’s weird enough to distract readers from the clunky, two-fisted, noir-by-numbers dialogue.

After last week’s manga inferno, it’s nice to see a shipping list that’s a little more sedate. There’s plenty of good stuff, though.

I’m really enjoying the current arc of Fables. As much as I’ve liked Boy Blue’s trip to the Homelands, though, it’ll be nice to catch up with events in Fabletown. And that cover for #39 is breathtaking, as usual.

Not all big summer events are to be avoided like medical waste on a public beach. DC’s Seven Soldiers titles have been a lot of fun. I think it puts me in the minority, but my favorite has been the Guardian mini (with Klarion a close second). Guardian 3 shows up Wendesday.

The shôjo issue of The Comics Journal (#269) arrives, which should make for lots of good reading. (I would say that even if it didn’t include a review that I’d written. I’m actually saying it in spite of that, to be honest.)

The third issue of Lackluster World hits the shelves courtesy of Gen: Eric. I really enjoyed the first two, though I came across them after the pre-order window for this issue had closed. I’m sure I’ll be able to track a copy down sooner or later.

The first issue of Marvel’s Gravity mini-series was good enough to make me pick up the second. I’m a big fan of Sean McKeever’s writing, and the story seems to have a lot of potential.

Lots of comics fans seem to like super-intelligent non-human primates. Lots of comics fans seem to enjoy all-ages titles featuring off-kilter comedy. Will those powerful demographics combine to make Oni’s Banana Sunday 1 a blockbuster? Why are you asking me? I just think it looks cute!

And, in a strange turn of events, neither Tokyopop nor Viz seem to want to hold me upside-down and shake me until the last of my pocket change falls to the ground. I’m sure they’re plotting something, though.